


Deserving

by HK44



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Drabble, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 01:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14414487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: “I was trapped in an endless void,” he said blankly. “I did not go to Heaven.”





	Deserving

“You remember the sunshine?” Jason asked.

He shifted in the makeshift hammock. The sun beat down at them but the memory of death and the sun lingered in the back of his mind. It was never too hot but never too cool. Just warm enough that he felt content to lie there, comfortable, and read a book in the grass.

Damian squinted up from his book at Jason. Jason booped his nose playfully then scowled when Damian kept frowning at him.

“The sun,” he began slowly like Jason was a moron, “is  _right there,_  Todd. Of course, I remember it.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “I meant in death, babybrat.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Heaven?” Jason tested. He sat up awkwardly, nearly upheaving himself out of the hammock. “Come on, I know it’s fading but you got back way after me. Shouldn’t be gone all that much.”

Damian stared at him. Then slapped his book shut, standing up roughly and too fast. “I was trapped in an endless void,” he said blankly. “I did not go to Heaven.”

He turned on his heel, ready to march off, but Jason swing forward and caught his arm, tugging him back. “What?”

Damian’s frown deepened. “I didn’t go. I was placed in a void. Every so often, I would have to feel the pain I inflicted on others but otherwise it was empty and I felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing.” He wrenched his arm out of Jason’s grip. “Now if you don’t mind,  _Todd_ , I’m going to finish my book somewhere where there is no distracting reminiscence about  _death_.”

He stormed off before Jason could grab him and in haste to follow, Jason tangled his foot up in the cloth, falling flat on his chest. By the time he’d removed himself completely from the hammock, now fallen to the ground in a hung clump, Damian was long out of sight.

He stared out against the field. Impossible. Damian was a  _child._ And even if the powers that be didn’t think it counted, that’s not what the middle looked like. Not that Jason knew, but he’d asked.

Purgatory was different. Punishing but a world of its own. Not a void.

Not endless.

Not empty.

Not lonely.

* * *

 

Damian scowled as he was cornered by Todd in the kitchen. “What do you want?”

As per the norm, Todd ignored him. “Who did you talk to?”

“When you died,” he said, ignoring how Grayson jerked into the table and splashed his milk everywhere. Drake glanced up at them. “Who did you talk to?”

“No one,” Damian said sharply.

“That’s impossible. Everyone gets told why they wound up where they went by  _someone,”_ Todd snapped. “I know, I asked.”

“Well, whoever answered you  _lied_ ,” Damian snarled. He yanked open the fridge door, rooting for the jug of lemonade. “I spoke to  _no one_. They spoke to  _me_.”

Todd barred himself, caging Damian against the fridge door and Damian nearly threw the glass container of lemonade at him. If he died in the process, at least he’d be  _gone_.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it means,  _Todd_.” Damian shoved him back with one arm and slammed the jug down on the counter. “I was placed in a void. I was told they could not decide what to do with me, that my case was complicated. That if I  _hadn’t_  met Father, if he  _hadn’t_  returned me, then perhaps I’d be placed with all the other lost children. But  _I was_. And  _despite_  seeing an alternative, I still rejoined my mother and her  _methods_  which meant I was truly conscious of what I was doing. That I saw it was  _bad,_ a sin, and did it anyway of my own volition.”

He pulled a glass down from the shelf. “I was told that my punishment would be to  _suffer_  in an endless abyss for the rest of eternity or until they decided on something  _better_.” Pouring the lemonade into the glass, he ignored how it sloshed against the counter, dripping off the sides of the glass with the shake of his nerves. “Loneliness was my fear and they utilized it  _well_. And every other hour, I’d have to suffer through inflictions of the pain I’d caused.”

He put the jug down. “It wasn’t  _wrong_. It was well deserved. I was a monster and no amount of doing good will change that, they  _told_ me as much, but  _perhaps-”_ He cut off, breathing hard and refusing to meet Todd’s eyes. “Perhaps it will change it. Lessen whatever slew of charges exist against me” He grabbed his book. “So,  _no,_ Todd, I don’t know what Heaven looks like. I wasn’t allowed to be there.”

He turned on his heel and stormed out of the kitchen, leaving a gap of horrified and conflicted faces behind him. What did he care? Sure, he was a child. But a grotesque one. He hurt others without abandon. He’d  _killed_. Had spent a good majority of his time trying to get rid of  _Drake_  in a manner of ways. How could he deserve a spot in Heaven or whatever place the souls of lost children presided with all that he’d done?

He did not fear his inevitable repeat into death. He didn’t think they were wrong. They were all knowing, right? And if they believed his sins on earth would never be cleansed by the good he’d done, the good he was still trying to do, then perhaps he didn’t even deserve his void. 

Perhaps he deserved to burn with the rest of the monsters in the world.

A child he’d been,  _sure_. But what did that mean? He’d long known, even before Father, that murder was looked down upon, that it was  _wrong_  and still saw no reason to stop. He’d be indoctrinated into their little group of do-gooders and no-killing vigilantes and when he was brought back to the League, he still saw no reason to stop, no reason to leave, despite having been forefront to it all this time around.

So yes, his punishment was well deserved, perhaps even a little mundane compared to what he’d _thought_  he’d be getting.

But really, they knew him. Todd had seen him his more vicious days, had seen the League even.

How could they ever think he’d be let into a place of sunshine when he was the worst of the worst and undeserving of warmth.

Undeserving of love.

**Author's Note:**

> Saw a post talking about how Heaven exists in the DC universe and then a follow-up point about how Damian probably didn’t go so here’s a quick thing.
> 
> [Tumblr](http://happyk44.tumblr.com) || [Other links!](linktr.ee/hk44_art)


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